The Tampa Bay Lightning and the Chicago Blackhawks will face off to start the 2020-21 season. The Chicago Blackhawks finished last season in the last place in the Central Division with a 32-30-8 record. They still made the expanded postseason and knocked the Edmonton Oilers out of the qualifying round. (They lost the next round to the Vegas Golden Knights (1-4). The team was led by Patrick Kane with 33 goals and 84 points during the regular campaign. The ‘Hawks will rely on Malcolm Subban and Collin Delia between the pipes. Chicago scored just 2.97 goals a game and they gave up 3.06 goals a game.

The Tampa Bay Lightning finished the regular season 2nd in the Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference with a 43-21-6 record and took care of Dallas in six games to take the Cup. All things are great in Tampa Bay, Nikita Kucherov, who led the team with 33 goals and 85 points during the regular season is out for the season after having hip surgery. Between the pipes, Andrei Vasilevskiy finished last season with a 35-14-3 record with a 2.56 GAA and a .917 save percentage. Last season the offense put up 3.47 goals a game and they gave up 2.77.

The Blackhawks will be without Kirby Dach and Alex Nylander who are recovering from surgeries or Jonathan Toews who has an undiagnosed illness and Carl Soderberg is unable to join the team due to visa-related issues. The Lightning have won eight of the past nine games between the two.

Play on Tampa Bay on the Puck-Line (-1.5 Goals)